


this would not become us

by after_and_pine, limpwristdyke



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/F, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 21:32:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5307590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/after_and_pine/pseuds/after_and_pine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/limpwristdyke/pseuds/limpwristdyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snooping in the SSR's archives, Peggy uncovers a file labeled Angela Martinelli and a potentially disastrous project.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

 

for it is not right in a house of the Muses  
          that there be lament  
          this would not become us

_Sappho, trans. Anne Carson_

 

* * *

 

The kitchen is Angie’s favorite room in the house. It’s not the cooking or the way the light comes in through the window over the sink. It just feels, well, normal. Don’t get her wrong. She likes living in a mansion just fine. And she’s plenty grateful to be living rent free and out from under the nose of Miriam Fry. But sometimes she feels out of place here, in the wood-paneled rooms with their paintings and grand staircases. Like she’s just a visitor—trying not to scuff the baseboards or knock over a crystal ashtray that’s probably worth more money than she’s seen in her life.

The kitchen is different. Clearly, Howard Stark never intended to spend much time in it. In here, it’s just her and the dented pots and pans and the plain white tiles and the square formica table. Just her grudgingly giving in, pushing Peggy’s plate into the oven, and sitting down to eat her lovingly prepared (and delicious, thank you very much) bolognese alone. It’s not the first time. It’s not the first time she’s a little bitter or a little worried either. But it’s sure the first time she’s bitter enough to turn up that Captain America radio show Peggy hates just to spite her.

She’s not proud of it, but it’s true. Hell, Angie’s had plenty of her own late nights at the automat. But Peggy always knows where she is and that she’s not dead. And after the day Angie’s had—by 3:30 she’d spilled two coffees on herself at the automat and spectacularly botched another audition—she coulda used a little company and human kindness, is all.  So she feels less guilty than she might have for turning on the radio and liberating a bottle of red from Howard’s stash—Howard’s cellar, whatever.

“Save me, Captain America! I’m helpless without you!”

Jeez—what a sap. No wonder Peggy looks ready to personally hammer any radio that dares to play it. She’d been reluctant to admit that she had anything to do with Betty Carver, but Angie’d figured it out. Peggy did tell her, haltingly, about her almost romance with Captain America. _Steve_ , she’d insisted. Told Angie he was _a sweet, scrawny kid from Brooklyn. Stupidly brave. I think you two would’ve rather liked each other_. Angie just hopes Steve was as different from this character as Peggy is from Betty Carver.

“Hey, Krauts! Get your grubby fingers off my dame!”

Can’t imagine Peggy moonin after that type of fella anyway. Actually, Radio Captain America does remind her of that co-worker of Peggy’s. The one with the little tie who came in talking a real tough game but fell to pieces at the sight of Angie’s fake tears. Kinda reminds her of that whole not-really-a-telephone-company gang, truth be told. Knuckleheads.

Anybody with a lick of sense can tell that Peggy is good at her job, whatever it is exactly. The best, probably. Devoted. Determined. Smart as a whip. And pretty damn cunning, too. But that bunch had assumed the worst, no questions asked. And Angie, who knew nothing about Peggy’s spy antics or her secret life, had lied her heart out for Peg. To the feds, no less.

All the while, Peggy’d been doing them a pretty favor—working double time to save their behinds, and all of New York’s, probably. Angie had kinda thought Peggy might not go back to working with those meatheads who turned on her in a pinch. Fat chance.

 _A ham slap, a few bricks dropped. A box of cornstarch squeezed_ —Captain America’s footsteps on snow. _A breathy cry from ole Bet._

“Oh, Captain! You’ve done it again! How can I ever thank you enough?”

That’s enough. Angie’s had her revenge. She gets up to turn the station until she finds some soft music. Something she doesn’t know. (That’s best; no memories.) She tries not to think about Captain America or Peggy or Peggy’s lousy government job. Fails, of course. Peg must’ve been in the army with the Cap—with Steve. She told Angie once about the sense of purpose she’d had during the war, and Angie guesses that’s what she’s trying to hold on to with this job, whatever it is. She likes to think Peggy could do better. Maybe in another world, but not this one.

Angie looks at the clock again, then hauls herself up to start washing dishes. Howard’s made some fancy in-home device for sparkling them up real good, but Angie doesn’t trust it. And she likes to do it herself; good to have something to do with her hands. The soap foams up her forearms as she scrubs.

It’s not that she’s not proud of Peggy. Hell, she almost wishes she had other friends so she could tell them about her. She doesn’t know much about the specifics, but she knows Peggy believes in what she does. Even suspects she does everything she does _for the greater good_ and all that—whatever that means. Yeah, Angie’s proud of Peg. Trusts her.

It’s just. It makes her a little—uneasy, sometimes, knowing there’s red-blooded, all-American government types in such close quarters. Maybe Angie’s getting a little hysterical, maybe it’s the wine, but Christ, they probably have her number. And if they didn’t, they’d sure as hell take it down if they knew enough about her. There are few things government types hate more than queers.

“Still up?”

“Jeez, Peggy!” Angie drops the plate she’d been washing back into the water with a splash and nearly jumps out of her skin. “You gotta quit sneaking up on me.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe if you didn’t stay up so late…”

“Real rich coming from you.”

“Angie, I’m—”

“No, I’m just foolin.” Angie waves her off with the dishtowel, and makes her way to the oven. “Made enough dinner for at least four. Here,” she says, pulling Peggy’s warm plate from the oven and setting it down on the table, set for one.

Peggy looks grateful, in spite of her guilt. “You’re an angel,” she says, sliding out of her pumps and sitting down to eat.

Angie pours her a glass of wine. “Rough day at the phone company?” she winks. She can’t help but forgive Peggy her lateness, not when Peggy’s looking at her like that, the corners of her eyes wrinkling, her hair unspooling at her collar, a red spot of sauce at the corner of her full mouth. Angie wants to—well, she wants a lot of things.

“The usual,” Peggy says off-handedly. She rarely elaborates.

“Well, I hope it was better than mine, anyhow. Coffee everywhere, leering jerks. And the worst audition of my life. Spent all my tips just to get there, too.”

“Oh, Angie. I’m sorry. You know if you want to quit the automat everything here is taken care of.”

“Nah—gotta keep busy and save some.” As much as she likes the idea of being Peggy Carter’s kept woman. But part of her can’t help but imagine a day when this all comes crashing down around her. She sits down across from Peggy. “I kinda wonder sometimes, though. What it would be like to do work that means something. Do you still feel that way? After that fiasco at the Griffith? I hope you get to do more than order lunch.”

Peggy sips her wine, considering. “I do,” she says finally. “They’re starting to realize what I’m capable of. But I do have to remind them rather constantly, it seems. And I still have to fetch lunch.”

“That's not all bad, I guess,” Angie says. “At least you feel useful.”

“Yes.” Peggy thumbs the corner of her mouth and breathes in like she’s trying to compose a question. “Did you, during the war—” she hesitates. “Were you…”

Angie knows what Peggy’s trying to ask, and suddenly marvels that it hasn’t come up before. She gets that rushing feeling between her ears, and feels like her stomach—light as a balloon—could fly right up out of her. Better to bite the bullet than have Peggy draw it out of her. “Nah, they didn’t want me.” She makes herself smile. “Flat feet.”

“Your feet?” Peggy blurts, eyes narrowing to Angie’s uniform heels in the corner, maybe remembering some mention of dance lessons.

Angie means it to sound like a joke, but she can’t hide that earlier edge of bitterness from her voice as she stands. “I’m sure you’ve got a file on me somewhere. Anyway,” she says, moving to drop her glass in the sink, “I’m beat.”

“Angie, I’m sorry, I—I didn’t mean...”

“You’re not the only one with secrets, Peg,” she says quietly, paused in the doorway. “Good night.”


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn’t mean to spy on Angie, not really. It just sort of happens that Peggy, errand girl that she is, is sent to the New York National Archives the next day to retrieve some files for Agent Thompson.

It’s blessedly quiet in the large room of narrow, dimly lit rows. Each box she opens sweeps a cloud of dust into the air where it swims in the circle of light overhead. Peggy’s glad she wore heels today, because the last box on her list is on a high shelf, and there’s no step ladder in sight, and she decides she doesn’t fancy climbing the shelves when she remembers something Angie said last night. About her feet. And then—

_I’m sure you have a file on me somewhere._

Peggy makes quick work of the last box and tucks the files for Thompson under her arm. She barely gives herself time to think about what she’s doing. Briefly reminds herself, as she moves through the rows, that Angie brought up the file herself—practically an invitation. A challenge, even. Yes. She likes that about Angie. Peggy smiles to herself as if they’re playing a game.

After some time, she finds a haphazard collection of boxes labeled WAC in a low, dark corner of the room. She places Thompson’s folders on the ground, crouches, and pulls out a box at random. The Army hardly cared enough about its women to keep meticulous records. And even if there is such a file, it might not even be here.

But it is. In the third box she opens, Peggy finds a brown folder labeled _Angela Martinelli_. She sits with her back against the shelf, holds the folder gently in her lap, and suddenly realizes what she’s doing. She remembers the look on Angie’s face as she stood in the doorway last night. Tired; defeated, almost. She should put it right back and pretend this never happened. But she’s come this far.

Peggy opens the folder. What she finds is just what she expected—a small Certificate of Acceptability stamped and marked not acceptable. She flips it up, not entirely expecting to find a diagnosis of flat feet. But this—this isn’t the check-box list of physical ailments. Instead, Peggy sees _Psychologically unfit: psychopathic personality_.

Peggy knows what that's code for. She worked with enough bigoted recruitment officers and military doctors to hear their murmured speculations about effeminate soldiers or a pair of WACs who spent too much time together. Of course, there’s all the usual terms. But those types—haughty men in white coats—often seemed to take it a step further. To make what they didn’t understand into an illness, an aberration. 

In a deep breath, she remembers Angie’s early persistence, her jealous questions after _Mr. Fancy_ , how Angie had startled once, then blushed, when Peggy wiped a bit of flour from her jaw. How Angie had lied for her and taken her in through the window. How lovely she looks in pink. _Bollocks_.  

She might feel elated—being honest with herself—if she didn’t feel so dreadful about what she’s done, ferreting out this secret. She’s beginning to feel angry about how Angie had undoubtedly been treated when she looks back to the file, not expecting to find anything else. But there’s something more. A slip of paper, printed with _The Damastes Project: potential candidate_. And a red stamp that seems to blame Peggy all over again: Strategic Scientific Reserve.

The budding anger from before is now a glowing rage with a bit of sick fear. This can’t be good. She knows all too well that the U.S. Army has no good will toward any sort of deviant. Well, known deviant. Steve ( _Steve!_ ), with all his physical ailments, had somehow managed to slip under their radar in that particular regard. And she—well, she—

“Damn!” Peggy smacks her open palm with the closed file and stands up so fast she’s nearly dizzy. She shoves Angie’s file back down into the box, closes it, and kicks it back into its place. She picks up Thompson’s files in such an angry rush she nearly scatters them everywhere.

She breathes deep, as if she’s trying not to hit someone, and heads purposefully back to work. She needs to figure out what this Damastes Project is. And she has to find out if the SSR has anything else on Angie.

 

* * *

 

Back at her desk, Peggy feels at once sick and alert, as though electricity is tingling the hairs of her arms. She finds herself reading the same paragraph over and over, not understanding a word. She feels terrible for learning Angie’s secret in this way; whatever Angie had intended by her remark last night, she obviously hadn’t expected Peggy to discover this. And yet now she has to know the full story. She has to find out what the SSR was—or is?—intending to do with Angie.

As soon as she has a free moment, she makes her way down to the records room, where she keeps one eye on the door while she searches the likely file cabinets. It takes more time than she’d like; there must be thousands of files for hundreds of archived projects here, and no one has taken particular care to organize them. After the chief’s death, all research about Howard’s inventions hastily ceased, and it shows.

She feels a familiar wash of guilt as she surveys the current cabinet. Peggy has tried so hard to keep Angie out of this part of her life. There is no reason for the SSR to know who Angie is. Full stop. No reason at all, and yet—finally—here she is. In a drawer in a lonely room in the basement of the SSR.

Peggy takes Angie’s file and sets it aside. Her feet hurt. She toes off her heels and stands, arms crossed, in front of the file cabinet, its drawer open to her like a long rippled tongue.

Peggy sifts through the other files first, all labeled _The Damastes Project_. Other women’s faces look back at her, no one she recognizes, no common characteristics. Some, like Angie, were rejected or discharged from military service; she sees again _psychopathic personality_. There is no official term for what Angie is—indeed, the WAC psychiatrists and evaluating officials often turned a blind eye to all sorts of things in the interest of meeting recruitment quotas. But not here, not these women.

There are folders for several women who did not attempt to enlist. Peggy skims their files, trying to see—what? Why are they here too? They are shop attendants, students, unemployed. Each is marked a potential candidate, each bears the red SSR stamp. She wonders if there had been another method of identification and selection outside of military records.

Finally, she brings herself to open Angie’s file. It’s fatter than the one in the records office. Angie’s enlistment papers are first, followed by a list of known addresses, the Griffith among them, as well as a few apartments in Brooklyn. Her most recent address—their address—is missing. Perhaps the project has been suspended.

Behind that, Angie’s photograph looks up at her, defiant. A second photograph shows Angie’s profile, and Peggy can make out a fresh scrape near her ear. Mug shots, Peggy realizes with a start. Beneath them, a record of arrest for unlawful assembly. The last document is a small newspaper clipping: a police report, a raid on a bar in Greenwich Village.

At first, Peggy had hoped this could all be about keeping tabs on unmarried women. That would have been bad enough. Now she’s certain they were targeting women like—like Angie. But for what purpose? Perhaps during wartime the government had wanted to create a kind of registry, which they’ve since abandoned for good. But something feels wrong about that conclusion. Peggy edges back into her heels and resolves to make one more stop before she goes home today. _Damastes_. It sounds Greek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG tnx everyone for reading & for yr sweet feedback! 8)
> 
> Resident obsessive researcher after_and_pine has compiled some historical notes if you're interested in reading more about the "psychopathic personality" rejection:
> 
> First, the term itself: “Homosexuality was first formally defined as a mental disorder in the 1930s as a type of psychopathic personality disorder, and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in its first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published in 1952, included a category called sexual deviation as a subtype of sociopathic personality disturbance. Homosexuality was mentioned as one example of the sexual deviations.” This comes via the Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures.
> 
> Part of this, of course, is conjecture, as at the time there was no official category to reject queer women from Women’s Army Corps service. Many lied during the screening process, which wasn’t exactly rigid, and found a community of like-minded women in the WAC. Others, like Angie in our story, were rejected or dismissed for being queer. 
> 
> From the 1940s through the 60s, homosexuality was largely considered a form of mental illness by medical professionals, the government, and the general public. The Palm Center, a research institute for gender and sexuality and the military, notes that during World War II, “Army and Navy officials would persist in describing homosexuality as a ‘constitutional psychopathic state’ and to diagnose gay and lesbian service members as ‘sexual psychopaths’” (citing Allan Berube’s Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two). 
> 
> Irving Bieber and Albert Ellis, prominent psychoanalysts in the 40s, “described [homosexuality] as ‘psychotic’ or ‘psychopathologic’” (Covering, Kenji Yoshino). 
> 
> Most telling, we think, is this passage, also from Covering: “A 1952 congressional enactment required the Immigration and Naturalization Service to exclude individuals ‘afflicted with psychopathic personality’ from the United States. Everyone at the time understood this category to encompass homosexuals.” In fact, up until 1990, the United States reserved the right to exclude queer immigrants under these terms. Even though 1952 is a few years after this fic, we’re sort of imagining this post-WWII as a time when all this would just be stirring up.


	3. Chapter 3

Peggy closes her eyes and rests her head in her hands over the large book in front of her. Of all the godforsaken places she’s rummaged through today, the library isn’t the worst. A little human at least. And now she’s got a fairly good idea of what this project is.

Earlier, she was regretful—ashamed, even—that she’d betrayed Angie’s trust. Treated her like a silly spy project. But now she’s determined to get to the bottom of this. To find out why the SSR has its hands on Angie, and then protect her, if need be. She feels even worse for coming in late last night, when Angie had fixed dinner for her, as usual, and— _damn_!

She checks her watch, and bolts up too quickly—again—knocking her chair to the ground behind her.

“Miss!” the librarian hisses.

But Peggy’s already sprinting through the library, dodging a huddle of reading children, and accidentally elbowing an old man’s back. “Sorry!” she shouts back, her voice echoing with her heels through the quiet hall.

The last blue evening light is washing over the skyline by the time Peggy makes it home. Their building is flashy and imposing by day; now, in the street lamps and fading haze of sunset, it is grey and forbidding, a reproach. She’s late again. But not so late—Angie might not have given up on her just yet.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry!” Peggy says, still out of breath, before she’s even past the doorway.

Angie steps out of the kitchen and, bless her, laughs at Peggy. “Jeez, English, what happened to you? Some goons chase you home?”

“Not exactly. Just hoping to catch you for dinner.”

Angie looks pleasantly surprised, then disbelieving, but still, she smiles at Peggy. “Well, you’re in luck! Snagged some scrawny looking pieces of chicken from work.” She turns back into the kitchen, and Peggy follows, smoothing her skirt, wishing she’d thought to put her hair in order before coming in.

 

* * *

 

Angie worries about Peggy. After that entrance, she was half convinced some brute was about to bust in right after her. But right now, she’s just glad Peggy’s here to sit down for dinner. And maybe a little pleased that she apparently ran all the way home.

“Set the table for me?” she asks over her shoulder.

“Of course,” Peggy says and reaches for the cabinet. She sets a place for each of them as Angie works at the stove. “What else can I do?” she asks.

“Grab a bottle of wine for us, will ya?” It’s kinda nice, Peggy shuffling around for her.

Angie fills their plates and takes off her apron just as Peggy’s coming in with the wine. Angie opens it, pours them each a glass, and thinks about telling Peggy how glad she is that she’s here.

“So you ran all the way home, huh?” Angie asks instead as they sit, a bit of mischief in her eyes.

Peggy swallows, takes a drink of wine. “Better than the subway at rush hour, honestly. And I only nearly tripped over one child in the library.”

“The library? So, what, were you hiding a microfilm in a hollowed-out book, or swapping briefcases with a man in a trenchcoat or something?” She can’t help poking fun at Peggy just a little. Especially tonight, when she seems like she might just give in and tell Angie—something.

“Very funny. I was doing research, actually.” Peggy pulls a bit of meat from the bone. “Have you ever heard the story of Damastes?”

Angie hasn’t. “Damastes? Nah. Sounds Greek.”

Peggy chuckles. “It is, from classical mythology. As the story goes, Damastes—or Procrustes, all the Greeks have multiple names—he would offer a bed to a weary traveler. Then, at night, he would use his axe to cut off an arm or a toe, anything that didn’t exactly fit inside the bed. If his guest were too short, he would stretch their body, dislocate their bones, so they too were made the right size.” 

Angie’s quiet for a sec. “Huh. Nope, never heard of it.” It’s a weird story, but what really bothers her is how upset Peggy looks by it all. She’s often got some mysterious work problem on her brain, but this—she looks a different kind of worried. “Kinda creepy, I guess. What happened if you really were the right size? If you did manage to fit the bed?”

“Impossible. He secretly had two beds, so no one would ever fit.”

“That’s dark stuff, Peg. What’s it got to do with the telephone company?”

Peggy shakes her head. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Angie wants to make her laugh, get that troubled look off her face. “So of course you finally run home to tell me about what you did at your super secret job, and all I get is a trip to the library and a lecture on mythology. Doesn’t seem fair, English.”

Peggy huffs, fondly—Angie can tell—and gnaws the bone clean.

“Got another hopeless audition coming up,” Angie goes on. “Wanna watch me stumble through a new monologue?”

Peggy seems to relax at the change of subject, and pours them each more wine, smiling. “I’d like that very much, indeed.”

Angie’s practiced in front of Peggy plenty. At the Griffith, they’d read lines over schnapps, and Peggy’d even helped her practice a dance routine once. But that doesn’t mean Angie’s not nervous every time. Almost more so than at her auditions themselves. She wants Peggy to see how good she can be, to believe in her. But all the same, it’s fun like this. Peggy seems to forget about her troubles for a while, and laughs along with her.

Angie lets Peggy finish the last of her dinner, then pulls her from the kitchen into the living room. “Okay,” she says, shoving the script in Peggy’s hand. “This one’s Shakespeare. I’ve about got it, but follow along, will you, and prompt me when I get lost.”

“ _Twelfth Night_ , one of my favorites,” Peggy grins, flipping through the script as she settles into the sofa and tucks her feet up under her.

“Me too,” Angie beams. “Now check that dogeared page there—that’s right. Okay—” she turns for a second, preparing herself. This scene is a good one. Viola—recently shipwrecked, disguised as a man—just met the countess Olivia for the first time.  

“I left no ring with her,” she begins. She goes on, totally focused on her words, getting them all just right, she’s sure, until— “I am the man. If it be so—as ’tis—”

She stumbles, can’t draw anything up, and looks to Peggy for a line. Peggy’s staring, giving Angie her undivided attention, but doesn’t give her a hint, doesn’t even seem to notice she’s stuck.

“Peg?”

“Wonderful, Angie!”

“No no, I’m lost—what’s my next line?”

“Oh! I’m sorry, let’s see.” She finds the place, pauses, then mumbles, almost to herself: “Poor lady, she were better love a dream.” Her eyes meet Angie’s.  

“Disguise, I see, thou art wickedness!” Angie picks it right up, but sees Peggy kind of flinch in her seat. “Oh damn, is that wrong?”

“No no, just right—go on.”

“Disguise, I see, thou art wickedness, wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy it is for the proper false in women’s waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, for such as we are made of, such we be.” She stops there, sees that Peggy doesn’t seem to be paying attention to her or the script in her hands. “Y’know, I never liked those lines too much. You wanna see frailty? My aunt Luisa’s got a killer left hook.” Still nothing. “Peg?”

“Oh, let’s see,” Peggy flips back to the scene.

“Forget that,” Angie interrupts her. “Are you all right?”

“Me? I’m sorry, yes—please. Run through it once more for me?”

“Sure, Peg. Right, okay...” She starts again, determined this time to do it real good. She does get through it, remembers it all without a hitch. She can tell Peggy’s working to pay attention this time, and seems pleased with Angie’s performance. “Not too bad, I hope?” She says, sitting on the rug in front of Peggy.

“You make a lovely Viola. Truly. Thank you,” she pauses, “for letting me help.”

“Well, we’ll see how it goes. I’m more of an Olivia fan, myself, but I got that cross-dressing-ingenue frame,” says Angie with a sad gesture at her chest. “Listen,” she slips Peggy’s wine glass from her hand and takes a drink, “don’t work yourself too hard at the phone company tomorrow, alright?”

“Perhaps I could try—but I am a woman of limited talents.”

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Angie says fondly.

“Simply the worst. I am sorry, though. About last night. And being late and all the other…” Peggy pinches the bridge of her nose. “I don’t mean. I mean, I wish—”

“Hey,” Angie puts a hand on Peggy’s knee to stop her. Her skirt is a deep blue today. “Don’t worry about all that, Peggy. I’m here, aren’t I? And you’re here. Doesn’t really matter, the rest of it. Not right now.” And she really believes that. Can feel how sorry Peggy is for all the things she can’t really change about her life or herself. And Angie loves—she loves all those things anyway. She pulls herself up from the floor with a hand on the arm of Peggy’s chair. She nudges Peggy gently. “Come on. It’s been a long day.”

Peggy stretches sleepily, adorably, and lets Angie lead her up by the hand. She's looking at Angie in that funny way she usually only catches out the corner of her eye. “Yes,” is all she says.

Angie could just stand here like this with Peggy for ages, where Peggy is leaning a little into her touch and soft in a way that Angie likes to think is just for her. “G’night, Peg,” she cuts herself off. “Don’t let that creepy bed shrinker guy at us, okay?”

She grins and turns for the hall toward the bedrooms, expecting Peggy to huff at her back and then maybe turn, go drop her glass off in the kitchen. She doesn’t expect Peggy’s strong hand on her wrist, holding her back firmly, but gently, her sure voice saying, “No. I wouldn’t dream of it.”


	4. Chapter 4

Peggy leaves for work the next morning feeling refreshed, buoyed by her time with Angie last night. She’s so lovely when she performs, her whole body moving with her speech, her face flushed attractively in the warm lamplight. Angie has a habit of biting her lip when she pauses to recall her lines. Peggy was rather distracted. Today, as Angie reminded her last night, there’s work to be done.

She spends the morning turning over what she knows—not much—and wondering how her silly spy game with Angie changed so quickly into something else. Peggy doesn’t begrudge Angie her secret—goodness knows Peggy’s brimming with secrets—yet part of her can’t help but feel a sort of tender hurt when she thinks about it, Angie’s past, whatever the details may be. And Angie thinking she ought to keep this from Peggy. It’s the same warm and painful crush she felt when Steve, before the serum, would fall back during training, his ribs heaving for breath, yet never stopping. Refusing to stop. They are alike in that way, Angie and Steve. She imagines each of them in Damastes’ bed, not measuring up, and she wants to hit something.

By lunchtime, Peggy’s no closer to deciding what to do next. She needs more information. She sighs and gets her little sandwich list together for the lunch order.

She saves Daniel for last. He’s always glad to speak with her. Peggy takes his order and decides to linger a moment, perched on the corner of his desk.

“What can I do for you, Peggy?” Sousa asks. “You look like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

Peggy smiles. “Not so much as all that. There is a problem I’m trying to solve, but I don’t quite know where to begin. I rather feel like Alice, slipped through the looking-glass. Suddenly everything is upside down.”

“Peggy Carter stumped? Get outta here,” he teases. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Perhaps you can. I’ve stumbled across one of the SSR’s old projects, started during the war.”

He nods. “There were a bunch of them. We had a heck of a lot more cash back then, and a lot less supervision. All kinds of scientists and engineers running around. Some of our projects were brilliant. And others—well, others were just bad news, if you ask me.”

“I’m afraid I unearthed the latter.” She keeps her tone light, reminds herself this isn’t an interrogation. “Do you happen to remember the purpose of the Damastes Project? Or the persons in charge of it?”

Sousa frowns. “That one’s above my pay grade. The chief would have known why and who we reported to. All I remember doing for Damastes was ordinary surveillance.”

“Ordinary surveillance?” Peggy repeats.

“Tailing people, writing up associates and addresses, opening mail. Basic.”

“I see. There was an establishment in Greenwich Village that was raided by police—”

“Oh, I remember that place. Coupla dames we were tailing were frequent customers there.” Sousa lowers his voice and leans in. “It’s a, uh, a night club for women.”

“A what?” Peggy says lightly, all raised eyebrows and innocent eyes.

Sousa blushes. “A dyke bar.”

Peggy widens her eyes. “Oh, my.” She maybe struggles to keep a bland expression on her face. Tries to remind herself that this, at least, is Daniel.

“One other thing,” Sousa says. “The Damastes Project—that was one of Howard Stark’s, back when him and the SSR were pals. You might wanna talk to him if you’re still, ah—curious about it.”

“Howard. Of course. Thank you for your help, Daniel,” Peggy says.

“And don’t forget, no mayo on mine,” he says, nodding at the list in her hand.

Peggy looks down and finds she’s crumpled the paper in her fist.

 

* * *

 

Peggy really doesn’t want to see Howard. Not right now. But when she’d phoned before her lunch run, Jarvis had said he was at home and Lord knows how difficult it is to catch Howard even when he’s not evading the law. She knows he’s got answers she can’t get anywhere else, and she feels a sort of urgency in understanding this project.  

“Ah, Miss Carter,” Jarvis greets her at the door to one of Howard’s mansions. “Please come in.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jarvis. Is Howard in?”

“I’m afraid he’s just stepped out—urgent business.” He nearly rolls his eyes. “Sorry for the bother. Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just put the kettle on.”

Typical Howard. Part of her wants to head home and imagine every possible way her argument with Howard could go. But her feet, and the rest of her, need a break. “That would be lovely, actually. Thank you.”

“Certainly,” he says, leading her toward the kitchen.

“That man,” Peggy contains herself, but sees Jarvis give a surprised grin. “He’s always been an amiable sort of jerk, Howard. Don’t you think?”

“Mr. Stark does come with his...particularities.”

Jarvis pours tea for them both, and she sips hers gratefully. Sitting here, among Howard’s things, it’s hard for her to imagine his involvement with the Damastes Project, his asking the SSR to spy on women with particularities of their own. Marking them for an uncertain future, some kind of undisclosed research.

But most men, she’s starting to realize, wouldn’t see anything wrong with it. She thinks of Angie again—always Angie—and can’t help but hate anyone who’d think that she was just a newspaper clipping and notes in a file. Peggy worries her lip and traces the mouth of her teacup. She knows now that she can’t be sure how someone, even a friend, might react to her own...particular feelings.

“Is everything all right, Miss Carter?”

She laughs a little, then sobers. “May I ask you something, Mr. Jarvis?”

“Go ahead,” he nods.

“Howard’s particularities and shenanigans aside, has he—has he ever asked you to do something against your moral code? I mean, as part of your job?”

He thinks a moment, regarding her. “It would be a fine day indeed if I never had to escort another barely-clad actress from Mr. Stark's rooms.” He gives her a small smile, perhaps remembering their march through the apartments of Howard’s glittering and offended former sweethearts. “Difficult as it is to put those things aside, I think I can safely say that he has not requested anything I have not been willing to do. If he ever did ask such a thing, I believe I’d have to decide which meant more to me: the job, or my own...integrity, if you will.”

Peggy taps a fingernail against her cup. “Hm. I’m sure you’re right.” The dregs of her tea are a murky, shifting cloud at the bottom.

“And, I’m sure, if you had to make such a choice, you would be, too.”

“Thanks,” she says, quietly. Something about all this makes her feel younger, unsure. Perhaps it’s having this kind of secret again.

“Anytime, Miss Carter,” he smiles. “Now,” he says checking his watch, “I really must get this pie in the oven or Anna will have my head.”

Peggy stands and stops herself from saying how surely Angie will do the same if she comes in late or running again, and remembers that Angie’s got a closing shift tonight anyway. “We wouldn’t want that. I’ll try to catch Howard another day.” She turns to go, and hears Jarvis call after her.

“Peggy—you’ve got a good head, and good heart. I have no doubt you’ll do the right thing.”

“I do hope so. Thank you, Mr. Jarvis.” She has one more stop to make today.

 

* * *

 

Outside, Peggy takes the small slip of newsprint out of her pocket. There’s no photo, no exact address, only a cross street. She can’t even be sure if the bar is there any more. But if this is where the Damastes Project got some of its subjects, well. Peggy’s not ready to let this go for the day. Not just yet. Perhaps she ought to pay them a visit.

Her heel slips on a cobblestone as she walks through the neighborhood, and she remembers, with a wry grin, her interview at the Griffith. No wonder Miriam, paragon of all things polite, had given her a look when she spun her story of the West Village. She stops on the sidewalk near the cross street, trying to figure out the best way to find this place. Men and women are out, most of them walking home from work, but none of them seem to be stopping in anywhere nearby.

She feels like a damn spy. Technically, she is, but she doesn’t want to be right now. Not here. She thinks back to a few nights out in London before the war. She’d gone out on her own, but she’d known the right people, or the right names at least. She remembers the boy who’d given her directions to an unmarked door down a dark flight of stairs in Bloomsbury, and the woman who’d let her in and taken her coat. Remembers dancing, feeling a little less alone.

She rounds the corner, looking for something unremarkable. There’s a narrow alley—she follows it, and finds a black door, unmarked, hidden from the street by a stack of wooden crates. Cigarette ends and broken glass scatter the ground. It feels right. She lays her palm on the door, then draws back to knock. She counts five beats, ready to knock again, when a broad woman opens the door, props herself up on the frame, and hovers over Peggy.

“Can I help you, Miss?”

“I hope so, yes. I was looking for a certain establishment.”

“Were you?”

“I was—er—hoping I might buy a drink.”

“A drink, huh? And who said you might find a drink here?”

“No one, I’m afraid—I just thought—”

“Seems like you thought wrong. Nothing for you here, lady. Better move along.”

This is the place, Peggy’s sure of it. She can’t get pushed out now, not when she’s so close. She’d been daft enough, trying to guess her way in here, and she realizes too late she should’ve put on a little more Rita Hayworth, a little more damsel in distress. Too late—the door’s closing on her. “Wait! Please, I’m looking for a friend—a good friend.”

The door stops. “What friend is that?”

Peggy hesitates, wonders if it would hurt Angie to speak her name here in a half lie. “Her name’s Angie. Angie Martinelli.”

Peggy’s totally charmed and not at all surprised by the way the woman’s face softens into a small grin at Angie’s name. Who wouldn’t love her? “Angie Martinelli. Sounds familiar enough.” The woman looks her up and down, and Peggy realizes they’re both trying to protect Angie in their own way, but they’re at odds here. “Can’t say. Sorry, doll,” she says, not unkindly, and shuts the door in her face.

Stupid. Very stupid. Peggy slaps the brick wall next to the door and turns back to the street. She’s desperate to find out what this damned project is, to find out if it’s been aborted, or if Angie and the other women marked for the project are in any kind of danger. But she shouldn’t have come here. Not like this. She knows she shouldn’t feel hurt by being shut out. She knows it’s the only safe way for places like these to exist. But still—it stings. And knowing she came here snooping about some SSR project, good intentions aside, only makes her feel worse.

There’s only one thing that would make her feel better right now. It’s a long way to the L&L, but she can’t imagine turning in just yet.

Peggy pauses in the street outside the automat, lit from within in shades of yellow and green. The blinds are down, but slanted open. Closest to the window, a woman laughs. Her companion nudges his foot closer to hers under the table. And there’s Angie, balancing a tray and a coffee pot. Looking exhausted but smiling in earnest, she’s beautiful. Peggy admires her familiar walk, her figure striped by the blinds and obscured by tables and chairs as she moves through the room, bends over to refill a cup.

Peggy is suddenly overwhelmingly aware of herself, her uneasy fingers on the wool of her skirt. Her arms and hands are half shadowed, half illuminated in the light of the window. She imagines some other agent standing here in the shadows, watching Angie like this—tracking her, taking notes. Imagines him lurking around the alley she went in earlier. Damn them all.

Collecting herself, she pushes open the door of the automat, into the rattle of plates and hum of refrigerators and low murmur of conversation, and finds a seat at the counter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all -- thanks for reading & for the lovely feedback!


	5. Chapter 5

Bussing plates into the kitchen at the tail end of the dinner rush, all Angie can think about is counting her tips, taking off her shoes, and giving booth three a real earful. Just where do they think they’re dining? The Ritz? Trying to cheer herself, she imagines Peggy sidling up to them, slowly picking up Jerk #1’s steak knife, and tilting it in her hand just so—making the glare of it shine in their eyes—as she lectures them on polite behavior. A nice image, really. Peggy’s white teeth bared and gleaming against her red lipstick. It does cheer her up. Maybe a little too much.

She gives herself a second to lean against the dish rack, then pushes herself up and back behind the counter. Speak of the devil—she hadn’t expected Peggy in here tonight, and the surprise of it only makes the sight of her sweeter. “Would you look what the cat dragged in?” she smiles, throwing her dishtowel on the counter for emphasis. “Didn’t expect to see you in here tonight, English. Coffee?”

“Please, if you’ve got it.” Peggy’s smiling at her, and Angie feels giddy.

“Sure thing,” she says, turning to grab a cup and the pot behind her. She places the cup in front of Peggy and pours, wishing briefly that pouring coffee was a skill somebody could actually show off. She does her damndest anyway. “You hungry?” she eyes Peggy, who looks about as haggard as she did running through the front door last night.

“I don’t even know,” Peggy laughs. “It’s been—”

“Long day?” She gives Peggy her sweetest grin. “How about a grilled cheese? Tell you what, the tomato soup’s pretty good today, too. How’s that sound?”

“Heavenly, in fact.” Peggy’s relaxing already. Good.

“Perfect,” she says, finishing up a ticket on her pad and pushing it into the order window. “I gotta go take care of a few fools, and then I’ll be back—wish me luck,” she whispers as she slides out from behind the counter.

By the end of the night, when the customers are gone and Angie’s cleaning up the place, Peggy’s laid-back and chatty, her long legs crossed and taking up two whole seats at the bar. It’s kinda hard for Angie to focus when she can see Peggy’s stockinged calf, the swell of her thigh, her pumps dangling off her toes. She almost tips over the mop water twice. Tries to look real good as she pushes the mop around and bends over to wipe the far ends of all the tables.

She starts telling Peggy stories, anything to keep her mouth moving and her eyes above the equator. Peggy’s offered to help three times already, but Angie insists that she stay right where she is on account of Peggy working so hard today and all. She’s almost done anyway. The dishes are humming along in the machine for the morning shift, the floor’s clean, the grill’s clean, the coffee pots are soaking, and the till’s locked up in the back.

“All right, English,” Angie says, unpinning her name tag and the stupid hat from her head and tossing them under the counter. “Ready to blow this joint?”

“Right and ready,” Peggy says. “Any spoils today?”

“How could I forget? Let’s see,” Angie bends to check the cooler behind her, calling back: “Devil’s food cake, pound cake, and what might be blueberry pie. Pick your poison.”

“Hmm, devil’s food tonight I think,” Peggy says, and takes the wrapped slice from Angie as she emerges from the cooler. “A perk of the job, eh?”

“I knew you kept me around for something,” Angie jokes as she shuts the main lights, leaving only the lights behind the counter. Peggy gets up to join her at the front door, and stands waiting in the half light as Angie fishes for the key in her bag. Doesn’t make sense for a woman who works so hard to look so good at the end of the day. But here Peggy is, yawning in the light of the street lamp coming through the window, her lipstick worn thin, her curls starting to straighten out, looking better than anything Angie’s ever seen. She’s gotta quit standing so near Peggy late at night when they’re both sleepy and everything is dim and warm. “Darn thing—there it is!” She pulls out the key triumphantly, and opens the door, gesturing for Peggy to go out ahead of her. She follows, pulls it closed, and locks it behind them.

“Take me home?” Peggy asks. That’s her line, usually, and hearing it from Peggy instead does something funny to her.

“How about we take a cab?” Angie says. She’s feeling indulgent, and her tips weren’t so bad today.

“Angie, you spoil me,” Peggy smiles.

“Don’t I know it,” Angie says as she hails a perfectly timed cab pulling around the corner.

It’s such a relief to sit down. Angie leans back in the warm cradle of the cab and closes her eyes, lets Peggy take care of the details with the driver. She must nod off for a second, because she jolts awake to the sound of crinkling paper next to her.

“Sorry,” Peggy whispers. “Hungry?” She holds a piece of cake in her hands. There’s a dark sweep of frosting on the inside of her wrist.

“Peg, you’re a mess,” Angie laughs, licking her thumb instinctively and running it along the crease in the soft skin at the edge of Peggy’s palm.

“Oh please, I’m very refined,” Peggy retorts, breaking off a corner of the slice and popping it in her mouth. “Here,” she says, breaking off another bite and pushing it towards Angie’s face. Instead of Angie’s hand. Where she could grab it and feed it to herself. They’re both punchy from the late hour, and Peggy looks so mischievous and pleased with herself, Angie can’t do anything but open her mouth.

Her tongue catches the pad of Peggy’s finger as she draws her hand away. Angie barely tastes the cake.

“Good, hm?” Peggy asks, thumbing a spot at the corner of Angie’s mouth and turning to take another bite for herself.

“Sure,” Angie manages. She clears her throat. Her voice is hoarse, and she feels very warm. She remembers the image she had of Peggy earlier, threatening her worst customers, flashing her perfect, dangerous teeth.

The red of Peggy’s mouth is almost black in this light. She’s smiling at Angie, one of her cheeks full of food.

“You gonna save some for me?” Angie asks, scooting closer.

“Thought I might get away with the whole thing. But since you’ve been so nice,” she breaks off another piece, feeds it to Angie again without missing a beat.

Angie swallows and wets her lips. Peggy licks a bit of frosting off her own finger, and Angie watches her mouth without thinking. When Angie looks back up, Peggy’s staring at her with an intensity she thinks she recognizes, then glances down to where Angie’s biting her lip.

They’re rocked forward suddenly as the cab stops. The driver gets out to open the door for them, and Angie slides away on instinct, fumbling for her purse. They’re home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for potential trigger warnings for this chapter.

Angie’s got an early shift, then an audition late. Usually, she hates these full days. But today, she’s glad she won’t have time to see Peggy on her way out, and hopeful that she won’t have much time to think.

She’s exhausted. She’d like to have a word with whoever came up with this closing before opening shift set-up. Doesn’t help that she lay awake most of the night playing over a million things in her head. There had been moments before with Peggy when she’d thought: maybe. Maybe Peggy could feel the way she does; maybe Peggy wouldn’t hate her for it; maybe Peggy’d been queer all along.

Once, when Peggy helped Angie with a dance routine at the Griffith, they’d practiced far longer than Angie expected. After a couple glasses of schnapps and a bunch of times through the routine, she’d decided she was ready for her audition, happy to give her feet a rest and fall to blessed sleep. But Peggy, to her pleasant surprise, had insisted that they keep at it until they'd nearly finished off the bottle.

Stuck in her head more than she’d like to be, Angie arrives at her stop just as her train does. She slides sleepily to a seat away from the small crowd, feeling grateful that it’s easy to sit alone at this hour. She rests her head against the window and when she closes her eyes, she’s back in that moment: Peggy flipping the record, again, and stepping easily back into position—her hand on Angie’s waist, urging her on.

“Ah c’mon, English, haven’t I rehearsed enough? I’m not really doing so bad, am I?” she’d asked.

“All about you, is it?” Peggy had teased, shuffling closer and resting her head on Angie’s shoulder.

Angie had frozen then, briefly. It wasn’t even a slow song. And they’d never been this close before. Peggy, warm with schnapps, just buried her face deeper into Angie’s hair. Angie had smiled then, and relaxed, pulling Peggy closer.

“All right, all right. One more song. Then it’s to bed with you.”

“Bossy,” Peggy’d mumbled into her neck, then stepped back to pick up the dance again.

Then there was the time Peggy’d stood on the ledge just outside her window. It had felt so dramatic, like some part she was always trying to play. This woman who always seemed to be flying away from her was standing there on the edge of the sky. And then Peggy’d eased her way back to the window and reached in, grasping for Angie.

It had felt like goodbye, then. But Peggy’d come back a week later and Angie hadn’t even had time to be mad at her before Peggy’d said, “Move in with me?”

She’s got it bad. She knows that. There was a time when she would’ve risked it all for one kiss in the alley behind the automat or a quick fumble in her narrow bed at the Griffith. For a while, all she wanted was for Peggy to be her neighbor so that they could eat breakfast together and get tipsy together and maybe so she could see Peggy in her dressing gown, soft and sleepy. And so that they could be friends.

But things are different now. She wouldn’t risk what she’s got with Peggy for anything. Unless she’s absolutely certain—and even then. What if Peggy changed her mind and slapped her away? Or only wanted a one off with Angie cause she’s around? Wanted to go back to just—being friendly and eating dinner together every night and stealing pies? Angie knew she couldn’t do that; it would ruin her.

And honestly, Angie thinks, Peggy needs her. She imagines Peggy coming in after a too-long day and eating a cold can of beans or falling into bed without dinner. She remembers a night she had to make Peggy sit down and ice a nasty looking bruise blossoming on her ankle, and once when she washed blood and grit from Peggy’s knuckles and wrapped her still-shaking hands. And who’d make Peggy laugh, anyway, if Angie wasn’t around?

And she needs Peggy. Angie remembers how hard it is to breathe sometimes when she’s tallying up her endless auditions or thinking about her mostly-estranged family that Peggy doesn’t know about. Peggy makes her feel like she can do things. Like she belongs somewhere.

Stupid, Angie thinks as the train rattles into her stop. Stupid. Never let Peggy feed you anything again. And quit staring at her all close and late at night.

She’s made a mistake like this before, sure, with a couple other girls, but none of them like Peggy. And it was only really a mistake once, she’s proud to say. It had stung then, but she’s long since gotten over it. She’s pretty good at reading folks, at knowing who’s in the family and who’s not.

Stepping up into the morning, the sky just lightening, Angie realizes that she’s kinda lonely. She oughta go out tonight, after her audition. See some old friends.

 

* * *

 

When she wakes, Peggy has the feeling that she'd like to go back to sleep. A feeling she hasn't had in ages. She doesn't remember her dream, but she still feels it, some fizzing warmth like happiness in her chest. She closes her eyes again, and little fragments start coming back to her. Her old room at the Griffith, the grain of the floor cool and close, Angie. _Oh_.

She opens her eyes again and sits up, throwing her legs over the side of the bed. It’s still dark out, but there’s a thin slip of light coming from under her door. She can just make out the sounds of Angie moving through the kitchen. The coffee pot scraping the stove, the mumble of her voice—probably swearing, her light footsteps, the open and close of the front door. An opening shift then. Doesn’t seem fair. Angie’s always tired in the morning, and usually running late. In a strange way, Peggy envies her that. She always seems to jolt up early into the day, whether she’s ready for it or not.

Peggy stands and stretches once, then begins her exercise in earnest. She likes to do this routine in the dark, just her and the pull of her body. She crawls forward into a pushup position and starts without counting. She tries not to think about anything, or at least to think only about the feel of the rug against her palms and the shadow of her hair by her shoulder.

It works, briefly. But then she’s closing her eyes and seeing Angie again. Her face in the dim backseat of the cab, her mouth opening for Peggy, her eyes turning so quickly to panic when they’d stopped abruptly. She pushes harder, relishing the burn in her arms. It’s not fair to Angie, what Peggy knows. Not when Angie’s so in the dark. And whose fault is that?

Peggy grunts and lets herself lie on the floor for just a minute. She ought to tell Angie everything. Apologize. But first she needs to find out what’s at stake beyond the two of them.

She moves quickly through the rest of her routine, then pushes herself up and makes her way to the kitchen. Angie’s left the light above the stove on, and there’s a small note by the coffee pot: _Should be a cup left for you. Audition around 5, home late! -A_

Peggy holds the note gingerly between her fingers before reaching for a mug and pouring a cup for herself. It’s still warm.

She doesn’t like lingering, unless she has to, and she’s got her work cut out for her today. The office, then Howard. Neither of which she’s much looking forward to.

 

* * *

 

“Peggy! Take a look at this,” Howard says, hunching over a contraption that looks to Peggy like an aerosol can welded to a sewing machine. “It’s gonna change the way we think about industrial painting.”

“Fascinating, I’m sure.” With the help of Jarvis, Peggy had finally managed to locate Howard in a cavernous workroom in one of his many homes. “Are you sure this is properly ventilated?” she asks, glancing at the small windows set high in the wall.

“Don’t worry about me,” Howard grins. “Freon is completely safe. Well, relatively safe. You’re not in any danger.”

“I should hope not,” Peggy says. “Howard, I need to know something about your research with the SSR. Were you ever involved with something called the Damastes Project?”

“The Damastes Project? Never heard of it. Be a doll and hand me that wrench, will you?”

Peggy locates a wrench in the mountain of tools behind her and gives it to him. “Howard, think. I believe it involved—it wanted to change women, somehow. To transform them. You recall the myth.”

Howard’s hair is standing up and the end of his moustache is slightly singed. At this moment, he looks nothing like Howard Stark, beacon of industry. He looks like a tramp.

“Oh, that Damastes Project.” Howard hums, looks her up and down. “I don’t know if you want to get mixed up in that, Peggy.”

Before Howard can turn back to his device, Peggy grabs the wrench out of his hand and holds it behind her back. “Tell me what it is, Howard. What was going to happen to those women?”

He hesitates. “I suppose you already know what kind of women we were looking for?”

“Yes. What were you going to do to them?”

“Science, Peggy!”

“Science,” she says flatly.

“It had to do with the science of desire. Women, naturally, are ideal subjects because they’re...impressionable. More mutable and fluid than men. The idea was, find a bunch of female homosexuals, do a few tests, get a working formula, and see if we can’t remove a threat to our great nation. Then expand, find out if it works on men too. That’s why the Army wanted it.”

Peggy feels sick, like her gut is about to fall out of her. “You were working on a kind of serum?”

“You could say that.”

“What did Dr. Erskine think of all this?”

“Erskine? Erskine wouldn’t touch it. Said Hydra was already goose-stepping down that road, and no soldier he ever knew was made worse for loving someone.” Howard leans back, arms folded, and looks at her. “But Dr. Boucher and I kept at it. I don’t always go in for psychology, hormones and all that, but it was compelling stuff.”

“Howard.” Peggy can’t say anything more. “It’s wrong.”

“It’s an injection! It’s humane. What in the hell do you think happens to those odd girls when their families send them to an institution?”

“I don’t know,” Peggy says. “Some sort of therapy, I suppose.”

“Electric shock. Incisions. Hypnosis, if you’re lucky.” Howard wipes his hands on the grimy rag tucked in his belt. “Do you know how a lobotomy is performed? A needle, this long, like an ice pick—” Howard holds out his thumb and forefinger, “is inserted through the eye socket into the brain—”

“Stop! Howard, stop—I don’t want to hear this.” Peggy feels lightheaded. She realizes she's not been breathing.    

“What we came up with could change all of that! No electrodes. This needle doesn’t even enter the brain. It’s just a shot in the thigh. An adjustment, a welcome chemical change.”

Peggy stares. “You could do that? Change a woman’s—inclinations?”

“Who knows?” Howard shrugs. “The plug got pulled. I guess the formula’s in a lab somewhere, but it’s never been tested. After the war, the government calmed down about the hotbed of lesbianism in its armed forces,” he winks.

There’s a knot, a curled fist, under Peggy’s breastbone. “Steve would never have stood for this,” she says hoarsely.

“Steve?” Howard laughs. “Steve was an asthmatic and a queer who wanted to be a soldier. And who knows—maybe a little of our formula did get slipped in, considering how he ended up feeling for you.”

Peggy slaps him.

Howard clutches his cheek. “Peggy, c’mon—”

“I thought you had learnt your lesson about mucking about in people’s heads.”

“I’m sorry, Peggy, I was out of line.”

“You bloody well are out of line. Erskine was right. You’ve got nothing but bad company down this road. You try to make it sound like you were doing these women a favor when not a single one of them knows the SSR had agents tailing them, keeping files on them. As test subjects, no less. It doesn’t sound very beneficent or voluntary to me.”

“Okay, Peggy, okay, I get it.”

“No you don’t, Howard! You don’t understand anything about this. And you’re wrong about Steve. He— he cared for me before the serum. Yes, he was—queer. But he was...he was queer like me. He and I understood that about each other.”

It’s a risky move, revealing herself to Howard like this when he’s just unveiled his hand in this horrifying project. But she knows him. It’s not that he’s got anything against her or anyone, really. It’s just that everything is hypothetical to him. Everything and everyone is a science project. Telling him this now might be the only way to make him see that it’s more complicated than that. That these aren’t subjects he’s dealing with; they’re people.

“Wait, wait, wait. What?” Howard’s totally derailed by this. “You’re what?”

“Shut it,” Peggy says. “I’m not talking to you about this. Just tell me this project is dead in the water.”

Howard blinks. “I dunno, Peg. I don’t. I stopped work on it years ago. The doctor was still keen on it, but it lost traction towards the end of the war.”

Her chest is heaving. She still has the wrench in her fist and imagines flinging it across the room and breaking every bloody beaker in the place. “Howard,” she says, “do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

He sits on his workbench and runs a hand over his face, through his hair. He doesn’t say anything for several moments.

Peggy flings the wrench toward him and he catches it. “I’ll see myself out.” Quietly, she adds, “Should I start looking for a new flat?”

Howard stands. “No, Peg, hey, wait a minute. Goddamn it, it’s not like that. I’m sorry. For what I said. It’s all just—ideas, in my head. Theoretical. You know? I’ve made this mistake before. Shit, Peggy.” He looks genuinely upset.

“I’m going to make sure this project is dismantled, and that all the stupid work you’ve done is destroyed. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Anything, Peggy, I promise. You know I’d do anything for you. And Steve too, for that matter. I’m going to find him one day, Peggy, that’s a fact. And I don’t...I don’t want him to come back to a world that’s worse than the one he left because of something I did.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes.

Peggy touches his hand briefly. “All right, Howard. I’ll be in touch.”

Jarvis offers her a ride, but she doesn’t think she can stomach any company just yet. Some fresh air will do her good. _And a good fight_ , she thinks bitterly, clenching her fists at her sides. The sting of her nails against her palms helps her focus, steady herself.

Peggy expected something bad, but this, and what Howard said, about the women who are sent to institutions—it’s unthinkable. She feels like a fool for being so shocked. She knows how the deck is stacked. Has known for a good long time. She thinks of all the women the SSR has on file. She can remember some of their photographs, small details about their lives, and imagines it happening to them. She thinks of Angie. Thinks of herself. Her hands are shaking, and for once, she can’t tell if it’s anger or fear.

How exactly were they planning to bring these women in? Of course there must be women who’d welcome such a change, if it were possible. But to use them like test subjects—all to make them, what? Normal? And knowing that Howard, the SSR, the Army—all of them in on it. She feels like everything she’s worked for has been against her all along. Did she think she’d be any different?

Funny that she misses Steve so in this moment, like an empty pang in her gut. He’d know what to do. He’d make it right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: brief and passing mention of 40s-era gay conversion therapy, institutionalization, lobotomy


	7. Chapter 7

Angie feels good about this audition. She might even get a callback this week. She got her monologue just right and they asked her to do two run throughs with a possible Count Orsino. All without being asked to do a slow turn so the director could decide if her profile and backside fit his vision of the production.

She decides she’s earned a night out. Time away from the automat, away from home, where lately her mind is getting a little too tangled up in Peggy. Be good to have a night all to herself.

She feels comforted just stepping into the old alleyway, and can’t help herself smiling when Frankie opens the large, unmarked door for her.

“Well, I’ll be damned. If it isn’t my favorite thespian herself,” she winks at Angie, gesturing her inside. “Where you been, Ange?”

“Hey,” Angie breathes, feeling herself lighten as she walks up to the bar. “Hasn’t been that long, now has it?”

“Been a few girls who missed you especially, you little stud. But otherwise, nah.”

Angie laughs, can’t help herself. “Oh, sure. You flatter me.”

“You better believe it. Let’s get you a drink,” Frankie says, jostling her shoulder before stepping behind the bar. “Still crazy about your schnapps?”

“Let’s try something different tonight.” Angie sits down and tries not to think about Peggy for just a minute.

“Sure, kid. How about a whiskey sour?”

Angie nods, scanning the place as Frankie pours them each a drink. There’s a couple of gals playing billiards in the back. She can hear the crack of the cue ball over somebody plinking out a warm-up on the out of tune piano. “How’ve things been around here,” she asks.

Frankie slides around the bar to sit beside her. She taps her glass to Angie’s and takes a drink. “Same old. It’s quiet yet, but should have a crowd soon enough. The usual girls,” she says, eyeing Angie.

“Rosie been around?”

Frankie huffs and slaps her on the back. “Still worried about Rosaura Diaz, huh? Can’t say I blame you. Pretty little thing. Sure, she’s been around a couple times. Not so much now that she’s living in Harlem with her new gal.”

Angie takes a big gulp or two of her drink, thinks for a second, then says, “It’s funny. I woulda followed her anywhere once. Tried to, you know. Went to the recruitment office the day after she did. Said I wanted to get away from my folks—not a lie.” She pauses. “But she knew I wanted to go for her. Didn’t mind either. Both thought we’d have a real nice setup overseas, I guess.”

Frankie lets her think for a moment, then nudges her gently.

“Can’t decide if I regret it or not, sometimes,” Angie goes on. “So many girls’d been let in anyway. Hell,” she drinks again, “June went down there in her damned suspenders and they let her in.”

“I know, Ange. She wasn’t here that night.”

“Should feel lucky I didn’t get blown up or something, huh? And I’m—I’m happy for Rosie. Honest. It’s war, right? You can’t expect anybody to come back to you on the whole, can you?”

Frankie takes a drink, considering. “You know, Alice would’ve gone, if it hadn’t been for the raid. Might be awful of me, but I can’t say I’m not glad she stayed here with me in one piece.”

Angie smiles, comforted by this reminder of two old broads who’d managed to be happy together, for the long haul. “Lucky,” she toasts, and drains her drink. “How’s she been?”

“Oh, perfect as ever. Keeps me honest. Makes sure I eat enough and don’t drink too much,” she winks.

Angie can’t help but think of Peggy, skipping meals. Worries for just a second, then remembers that she left a note, and that she’s not supposed to be thinking about Peggy right now. Grins to herself, imagining Peggy, worried, waiting up for a change. She goes to take a drink, but she’s only got ice left.

“Angela Martinelli. Here you are asking me about your old flame, and if I didn’t know any better you’re sitting here hung up on somebody else. Who’s the lucky dame?”

Angie looks up, stricken.

“Uh oh. Let’s get you another drink.” Frankie reaches over the bar, grabs the bottle, and pours more whiskey in Angie’s glass. She sets it down like a gavel. “So.”

Angie’s been pretending not to pay attention. As if she’s got a real interesting loose thread at the end of her sleeve. “Ain’t nobody. Just uh...living with this, well. She’s great actually.” Angie swallows, and hates herself a little bit. “Not that she thinks of me any kinda way. I mean, we’re friendly and all. Might as well be—” she stops herself and takes a long gulp of her drink.

“That so?” Frankie asks. “Go on, tell me about her. You sure she’s not, maybe?”

Angie laughs. She can’t believe she’s saying all this. But the more she says, the more she can’t believe she’s managed to keep all this to herself, either. Meeting Peggy was like getting lifted up by a cyclone. Strange enough in her own ways. “Y’know, sometimes I like to think. But, I dunno. Easy to convince yourself when you want to, right? You ever like a gal so much, I mean—you ever think it’d be better to just keep your mouth shut? To be happy with what you got and never risk losing her altogether?”

“Got it bad, huh?”

Angie tries to laugh at herself. “She’s something else, Frank. I mean—wow. She’s beautiful.” Angie makes some kind of gesture meant to express Peggy’s brash grace, the way she moves through a room, everything. “Smart, too. Funny. Real serious sometimes, but not always with me. Makes me feel like—I'm something to her at least. British, if you can believe that.”

“Wait a minute, Ange—I almost forgot to tell you.” Frankie slaps the bar, looking delighted. “Some dame came asking after you—British, too! Real proper accent.”

Angie feels herself getting real light in the head. Holds onto her glass as if it’ll keep her in her seat. “Some dame?”

“Never seen her before. A real looker, though.”

“Just what did she look like, Frank?”

“Dark hair, dark eyes. Real nice smile. Dressed pretty snappy, too. About your height, maybe a smidge taller. Great figure.”

Angie stands, and steadies herself on the bar. “I gotta go.”

“Whoa, kid, slow down. You okay?”

“M’fine,” Angie says. “Just—realized something. Gotta get home. Here,” she fumbles some change from her purse, not really feeling the ground beneath her. Frankie puts a hand on her shoulder, tries to slow her down, but Angie's gotta get outside. “I’m sorry, Frank. Thanks—for talking and all. It was real great to see you.” She leans up to hug her, and holds on a second longer, steadying herself, trying to remember that she’s not alone. 


	8. Chapter 8

Angie’s so mad she could spit.

Her hands are shaking as she turns the key in the lock. She wishes she was better at punching things, because that’s just what she’d like to do right now.

Peggy’s sitting on the couch, radio off, nothing else around, like she’s waiting up for her. Like she has the right. Angie jumps right into it.

“Where in the hell do you think you get off, English?”

“I’m sorry?” Peggy says. She looks confused, which just makes Angie angrier. “Angie, whatever is the matter?”

Angie throws her purse down and yanks off her shoes, then flings them both at her purse. “I’ll tell you what’s the matter. You ever see me following you to the phone company or wherever it is you go at night with Mr. Fancy? No. Never. I ain’t ever tried to figure out more of you than you were willing to give.” Her face is burning, and she feels a prickling at the corners of her eyes.

“Angie, I—”

“You got so many secrets, Peggy, and you just had to find out what mine was.” Angie’s voice cracks. She folds her arms and looks at Peggy, wonders if she’ll have to pack her suitcase tonight and where she’d go anyhow. “You look up my whole family, too? You know I got an uncle serving two years in Sing Sing for arson? There’s no other queers, though. Just me.”

Peggy looks as stricken as Angie’s ever seen her. Small, even. “I was only ever trying to protect you,” she says, wringing her hands in her lap.

“Yeah, well, you got a funny way of showing it. You’ve been sniffing after me like the feds. You work for em, after all. They put you up to this?”

Peggy frowns. “I work for the government, I do, but I’m not—” she struggles. “I would never do anything to hurt you or put you in danger.”

“So spell it out for me. What were you doing at Frankie’s place?”

“Is that her name? Charming woman. She’s awfully protective of you.” Peggy starts to smile but seems to think better of it.

“You look up my ma and pa, too? Bet they were surprised—been a long time since they heard from me.”

Peggy’s rooted to her spot on the couch and she’s losing color fast. She doesn’t seem able to say anything, but Angie’s on a tear now. “Huh? How they doin, Peg? Go on! Tell me all about it.”

Peggy breathes real purposeful and pushes herself off the couch. When Angie backs away without thinking, Peggy looks crushed.

“Angie, please.” She’s practically pleading with Angie now, trying to inch her way towards her. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you are.”

“I am! I never meant to hurt you. It was stupid of me—so stupid, I just…” Peggy turns toward the open window and supports herself on the sill. “I made a mistake. I’m terribly sorry.”

Angie looks out over Peggy’s head, out into the dark. It’s a warm night. The wind is hissing, invisible, through the trees.

“But Angie,” Peggy tries again. “There’s more to it than this.”

Angie can’t breathe for a second. Imagines Peg telling her she’d found what she was hoping for all along. That she’s crazy about her, always has been.

“Do you remember my telling you the myth of Damastes?”

Of course. Angie’s deflated, and it helps her get her bearings again. She crosses her arms. “The bed guy? What does he have to do with you stalking me?”

“It’s not just a story. It’s a project, an SSR project, or it used to be.” Peggy leans down and pulls a file from the briefcase at her feet. “I did a bad thing, I looked you up and didn’t tell you and I went to Frankie’s place, but I found something.”

Angie sinks into the couch and takes the folder from Peggy’s hand, flips through it while Peggy talks. It’s odd, seeing her own face looking back at her from the worst night of her life, thumbing through all the info these goons collected about her. Peggy explains what the project was trying to do, how they were trying to change women. How they found Angie out through her arrest, and how she thinks they found the other girls by casing Frankie’s bar.

“That’s why I knocked on Frankie’s door,” Peggy’s saying. “I had to find out. I had to know what this project was.” Peggy stops talking and looks at Angie expectantly.

Angie can’t hold her gaze. Instead, she looks back down, thumbs the corner of her photo, the glossy outline of her own face. “What do you care, Peg? They put you on this project or something?”

“God, Angie, no. I’m hoping, actually, that it’s been abandoned altogether.”

Angie’s still looking down at her photo, remembering how cold that night had been, how the snow had seemed to burst from the streetlights overhead. Finally she closes the folder and tosses it to the table. “How’m I supposed to buy that? I mean, believe me, I want to. But what’s it matter to you? This project—it’s your agency. Sure you don’t wanna drag me in as your big break? Show the boys you can do the tough stuff?”

Peggy’s mouth is hard and small. She looks like she’s about to cry. Angie regrets saying that last part, a little. But how can she take it back? She trusts Peggy, in her gut, but she needs to know Peggy’s on her side. And not just for this project, either. For the long haul.

Peggy’s very quiet when she says, “I know I haven’t been fully honest with you. And I know that must have been—I know it’s unfair to you. But I hope you know I’d never do that.”

Angie feels like she shouldn’t be comforting Peggy, not now, but she’d like to get up and place a hand on her shoulder anyhow. “Sure. Sure I do, Peg. But honestly, you gotta tell me why you’re worried about this project. I mean, if you were just trying to protect me, couldn’t you have yanked my file and let it be?”

Peggy turns toward the window again, looking out at the dark street before she closes the window, latches it shut. Her reflection is a yellow shadow in the glass. “I’m sure you know there are plenty of people who’d be very interested in a project like this. People who’d see some sort of benefit in changing those who are different. I’m not one of those people, Angie. This whole project seems…deeply wrong to me.”

She pauses for a moment, but Angie doesn’t say anything, hoping she’ll keep talking. “Growing up, I attended boarding school. There was…a girl there who was well-liked and funny, good at sport. She was fond of doing impressions of the headmistress.” Peggy smiles, miles away, and traces patterns on the windowsill with her finger. “I must have been 16 years old when it happened. She was two years above me. A teacher discovered her in an—an intimate embrace with a girl in my year. They would meet in the field house at the edge of the grounds. The older girl was expelled immediately, and her family found a suitable husband for her within the month. The girl my age was allowed to stay. I suppose they believed she was a corrupted innocent. Things were never the same after that.”

Angie stares. Normal girls don’t tell stories like this. And if they do, they sure as hell don’t sound so sad about it. Angie knows she’s taking a big risk when she says it, but she can’t help herself. “So you feel guilty for letting her take the blame all those years ago?”

Peggy doesn’t turn around, but her shoulders tense. “I was devastated when she left. Tried to get myself expelled for nearly a year afterwards. But the headmistress made it clear, in her way, that if I didn’t let it go—that if I didn’t get over her, things would never be right for me.”

“You screwin with me, Peg?”

Peggy laughs, and finally turns around to look at Angie. She’s been crying a little. “I’m afraid not.”

This is almost more than Angie’d ever let herself dream of. In spite of Peggy’s sad tale, she’s pretty damn happy, being honest. She’s got so many questions. What’s Peggy doing spying for the US of A? And what about Captain America?

Angie shakes her head, puts on a teasing tone. “Well, Miss Margaret Carter, violets after all. Why didn’t you say so?” Peggy seems to be cheering up a bit—the color’s coming back to her cheeks. “Damn, Peg. I got plenty of questions for you—and you owe me, too.” She gestures meaningfully toward the file. “Listen, let’s have a drink.”

Peggy smiles and looks relieved to have Angie back on her side again. “I think I could use one, yes,” she says, moving toward Howard’s cabinet. “What’ll it be?”

Angie’s ready to take anything Peggy offers when the phone rings, sharp and shrill from the end table. They both jump, and Angie stands as she checks the clock above the mantle. Later than any calls they ever get here. She looks to Peggy, who’s stepping briskly toward the phone. She looks worried.

“This is Carter.” She pauses. “Hello, Howard.” 

Angie relaxes at that, but she notices that Peggy doesn’t. In fact, Peggy’s starting to look real upset again. She’s clutching the receiver with both hands.

“You’re sure?” she asks, then waits. “Damn! All right. All right, Howard.” She’s pacing as far as the cord will let her. “Yes, I’ll start on it right away.” A pause. “Not yet, no. Better keep it close to the chest for now, understand?” A pause. “I think Angie’ll be helping me with this one, in fact.” Angie can’t make out what Howard’s saying, but she can hear his voice getting louder—sing-songy even. Whatever it is, Peggy’s blushing and looking a little mad. “That’s quite enough of that. Goodnight, Howard!” She all but throws the phone back into its cradle.

“Peggy?” Angie asks.

Peggy sits and puts her head in her hands. 

“What is it?”

“The project. I’m afraid it’s back in full swing.”

 

* * *

 

Angie sits down slowly on the couch beside Peggy.

“All right, English. Okay,” Angie says, hand firm on Peggy’s knee. “Listen, we can take these guys, don’t you think?” 

Peggy can’t believe Angie’s sitting here trying to make this right. “God, Angie. I’m so sorry. I’m—”

“This has got nothing to do with you.” Peggy knows it’s true, but she feels—complicit, somehow, in all of this. “And anyway, I forgive you. For the snooping.”

“Thank you,” Peggy breathes.

“Hey, let’s get you that drink. Could use one myself.” Angie stands and pours them each a whiskey and brings the glasses to the couch, passing one down to Peggy. “So, we’re gonna sink Damastes straight to hell, right?”

Peggy surprised by how strong Angie’s being right now. Though not entirely. Angie’s, well—she’s wonderful. And tough. Peggy would bet Angie could win a fight through sheer will and stubbornness. But this is bad business. She lifts her glass to Angie’s, gives it a solid tap, and takes a drink. “Straight to hell,” Peggy echoes.

Angie takes a long drink with her, then turns to put her glass back by the liquor cabinet. “This is bad news, isn't it?”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

Peggy would love nothing more than to have someone nod faithfully and let her work it out on her own. She wonders why she keeps getting into cock-ups with beautiful, headstrong fools.  “Okay, yes. Yes. This is serious.” 

Angie considers the cabinet for a moment, then turns quickly and moves toward the kitchen. “All right, English. We need some coffee.”

Peggy follows her, dizzy with Angie’s speed in moving from one thing to another. Dizzy with Angie’s energy through all of this. She watches as Angie stands on her tiptoes to reach the coffee tin, as she fills the pot with water and sets it on the heat. Then she turns to Peggy and leans, arms crossed, against the countertop. Peggy can see Angie soften a little.

“I know you feel bad about all this. But you gotta be honest with me if we’re gonna take out some secret government jerks together.”

Peggy’s stunned amazement at Angie suddenly catches up to her, turns into the realization that she’s caused exactly what she was so afraid would happen when Angie first befriended her. Remembers painfully pushing away from Angie’s attempts at friendship, imagining her another Steve, another Colleen. “No,” she says. “Angie, no, I don’t want you involved in this. Just leave it to me, and I’ll make sure it’s taken care of.”

Just like that, Angie’s taut and angry again. “You honestly think you can just tell me to shove off and let you take care of this?”

Peggy goes to protest, but can’t get a word in before Angie starts again, pacing the kitchen. “You got a lotta nerve, Peggy. I am involved, whether you like it or not. You saw to that the day you opened my file. Understand?”

Peggy nods, but can’t think of anything else to say.

The water begins to roll on the stove, and Angie turns to shut off the heat. She pours a cup for each of them, avoiding the thick silt at the bottom, and holds out a cup for Peggy.

Peggy moves to sit at the table and tries to protest one more time. “I do understand. Why you’re upset with me.” She doesn’t want to look at Angie right now, has to hold onto her resolve. “But this is going to be messy. You could be hurt.”

“Save it,” is all Angie says. “I’m in. You know as well as I do I’m gonna find out what this is all about one way or another.”

Peggy breathes deep, resigned, thinking she might be able to put Angie off it all later. “I don’t know much. I briefly met Dr. Boucher, the head of the Damastes Project, when Steve received the serum. Of course I had no idea what he was working on then. And now Howard tells me Boucher’s set up a lab somewhere upstate. He’s planning human trials. I wish I knew more. Everything about this project was above my clearance, just sloppily filed.”

“Sure. Okay.” Peggy looks up to see Angie’s relief turn to something sheepish. “Well—what else do you know, I mean—what do you know about me?”

Leaning against the counter, Angie feels far away. She sounds quiet for the first time since Howard’s call, and Peggy feels awful all over again. She wants to know everything about Angie. But after what she’s done, she doesn’t feel she has the right to ask. “Only that you were arrested and rejected from the WAC. And a few old addresses.”

“Okay,” Angie says again, taking a long drink of the coffee and cradling her mug. “And you found Frankie’s place?”

“There was a newspaper clipping in your file.”

Angie’s quiet for a minute and doesn’t seem to want to meet Peggy’s eyes. “I met somebody there,” she says. “Back before the war. She was a real swell gal. Danced like Fred Astaire, and always wore trousers. Kept her hair in a long, dark braid. Before Rosie it was just—a few girls here and there. Hiding out in broom closets. Or the sacristy.”

Peggy laughs at that, she can’t help herself.

“One night, after a long day of helping with the laundry, I go to Frankie’s place, hoping to see Rosie. She’s not there, but I stick around a while, no reason to go home. Had plenty of friends there, and it was the weekend. It must’ve been around midnight when the cops showed up.” Angie turns her mug in a slow circle in her hands. “Ol’ Frankie got beat up pretty bad. A few of us tried to put up a fight, but no dice. Now she’s got some arrangement that keeps the heat off her back, and nobody asks too many questions.”

Peggy feels such a tenderness for Angie listening to her now. That same painful protectiveness she felt early in their tentative friendship and after finding Angie’s files and talking with Howard. How she’d felt one night at the Griffith when she’d woken to breaking glass and the sounds of a scuffle in the street—it was past midnight, but she’d had the urge to get up and go next door, just to see that Angie was okay.

“Anyway. I moved out pretty quick after that. Ma and Pa weren’t too keen, and it was safer for all of us if I got the hell out of the apartment. And then the war happened. Rosie volunteered for the WAC and I wanted to be with her—you can see where this is going. All the girls were doing it,” she says with a wry grin, and Peggy smiles tentatively back. Peggy’s never talked openly about this in her life. It’s rather thrilling. It suddenly occurs to her that perhaps Angie’s taken after all.

“Are you and Rosie still, ah, in communication?” Peggy asks.

Angie smiles, but says, “We’re friends. Run into each other every now and again. Smart gal like Rosie broke it off with me before she shipped out. Messed me up pretty bad back then. She felt like all I had. I hated myself for getting locked up that night, not being able to follow her. Guess you know what that’s like, when somebody you love is god knows where, doing god knows what.”

“I suppose I do,” Peggy says. Angie looks at her for a moment, but Peggy doesn’t reveal anything more.  

Angie glances away. “Anyway. She’s over in Harlem now, living with a girl from her unit. Got a bad limp from when her barracks in London got hit. Meanwhile the two of them can hardly find a decent place to rent, being that she’s Puerto Rican and living with another broad.” Angie huffs. “Not exactly what our parents had in mind when they stepped off the boat, is it?”

Peggy nods with Angie’s story, but doesn’t know what to say.

Angie goes on, gaining momentum. “Bad enough before the war. But you’d think after getting halfway blown up or real rattled in the head, folks’d get some respect. Doesn’t seem to make any difference.”

Peggy considers for a moment. “Sometimes I wonder how much good we’re really doing, up in our laboratories with our serums and our devices. How many people we hurt trying to keep ourselves safe.”

“So—let me ask you something.”

Peggy feels on guard again, not sure what Angie’s getting at. “Go ahead.”

“You ever feel, I dunno—working for the government and all—do you always feel like you’re doing the right thing? Working for justice and liberty and all that?”

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever done. It’s all I’ve ever worked for.” Peggy believes in her work. It’s been her whole life for so long.

Angie’s looking at her, working her lip, like she’s trying to decide how far she can push her. Peggy has the sudden memory of Chief Dooley’s body, alight in midair. The open cut of the window.

“Listen, Peg,” Angie’s saying. “I don’t mean to say you gotta be responsible for everybody in this sorry town. Shit,” she grins into her coffee, “I know you stand for something. Might sound silly, but I’m proud of you. I just mean, you sure this SSR is really the place for justice?” 

Peggy grips her cup, feels its weight, its certain smoothness. Everything was so much simpler during the war. “Well, we got this one wrong. And I’m going to do everything in my power to clean this mess up. I promise,” she says.

Angie gives her a little smile and Peggy tries to ignore how it makes her pulse jump, how she feels more determined than she has in a long time.

“Okay. Good.” Angie leans against the counter, head cocked, still smiling. “So, what’s our first move?”

Peggy thinks she ought to feel worse about involving Angie in all of this, but part of her is quietly thrilled. She wants to give Angie a detailed plan right away, and drive upstate tonight. Can’t move too quickly though. “I don’t know enough just yet, but—”

“So the first thing on our list is more information.”

Peggy looks up to see Angie pushing herself off the counter and moving toward the table, taking a seat across from her. Her eyes are sparkling with determination and something a little darker. Peggy realizes, too late, that she should’ve turned in when she had the chance.

“This was all slapdash at your spy place, right? Any other files there that could help us?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Just creepy reports on random girls, but no details? I see. So you got my info from the SSRs.”

“The SSR, yes.”

“Right—you got my info from some box in the SSR, but how’d you find out the rest of it?”

“Howard.” Peggy wishes her answer were different. She can see that edge return to Angie’s gaze.

“Howard. Peg, what the hell’s Howard Stark got to do with this?”

Peggy pinches the bridge of her nose and wishes that they hadn’t switched to coffee after all. Her nerves have been twisted up all day and this isn’t helping. “We talked earlier. He’s since, ah, come around, but…” She can’t seem to make herself go on.

“Hang on—you’re telling me Howard had something to do with this? Some big thing to do with this?”

“Howard is—a complicated man.” Why is she always defending Howard? “He’s not a bad person, but he doesn’t—think sometimes. Or he only thinks, I don’t know. Everything is a hypothesis in his mind, something to be tested and tried.”

“Including me?”

“Angie, listen to me, please—”

“Including you?”

This stops Peggy short. She knows it could be her in one of those files. Knows this whole project is against her just as well as it’s against Angie and the other girls. She remembers her earlier nausea, after her visit with Howard. But she keeps letting herself forget. It’s been so easy for so long to elide the parts of her biography that will not help her succeed, to knit a fiction of her past that someone—maybe even Peggy—could have lived. When the SSR asked for an account of her secrets, she did not list her schoolgirl romance or the few women she found in London, their quick trysts. She had to protect herself, is all. When she lets herself look up, she can see Angie’s confusion and maybe a bit of something else. As if Angie can see right through her.

“You think this isn’t about you, too?” Angie seems to have more to say, but she stops herself and looks down into her cup, her brow taut with worry.

Peggy wants to protest, but she knows Angie’s caught her in this. This—distancing herself from what’s at stake here. “I suppose it’s never been an issue before I—before all of this. Certainly no one cared during the war, not where I was.” She recalls Steve’s wistful sketches of Bucky and wishes, not for the first time, that the SSR were as enlightened as the Howling Commandos. Peggy has a sudden and unsettling image of the lads at the office peering in her windows, rifling through her garbage bin, recording her name and height and past associates.

“I’m sorry,” Angie says. “I’m not trying to scare you. I just don’t—I can’t understand.”

Angie’s not like her, Peggy realizes. Angie’s never going to happen upon a man she could make a life with.  

“Listen,” Angie says. “I don’t wanna tell you what to feel, but if you think they’d let you off easy, you got another thing coming.”

Peggy’s taken aback by this—what feels like some sort of accusation. “Angie, I don’t—”

“I’m sorry,” Angie says again, interrupting her, considering. “It’s just—I’ve been hurt by this. Real bad. By people I thought would never hurt me. I don’t want that happening to you. Makes me sick to think—well, I can’t change it, can I? At least I don’t want you blindsided by it. Okay?”

Peggy nods again, feeling a bit stunned. She’s usually quite bad at being the recipient of a lecture. Doesn’t like to sit still and listen. But with Angie, it’s different somehow. She knows Angie’s not half wrong. Knows she’s been trying to tamp down this part of herself since she found Angie’s file. Hell, since she first walked into that damned diner. Knows it’s foolish even to try.

She’s pulled out of her reverie by Angie’s hand on hers. 

“Yes. Quite right. I mean, you’re right, of course. It’s all so—” Peggy tries to laugh at herself, but doesn’t do a very good job.

“So what about Howard?” Angie asks, bringing them back to where this started.

Howard. Peggy runs her hand along her brow and wishes she’d hit him with that wrench at him after all. “Howard was involved at the beginning. He and I spoke at some length earlier today. For what it’s worth, he seemed…contrite. He’s committed to helping me, us, dismantle it.”

“Just like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, I guess I expected this would change things. You sure we shouldn’t start scouring the local listings?”

“I did ask him, as a matter of fact. If we should start looking for a new flat. But I believe perhaps that’s when he started to understand.”

“You trust him?”

Like instinct, Peggy knows. “I trust him. It might not make sense, but I do.”

“Well, I don’t. Not just yet, anyhow. But I trust you.” Angie squeezes her hand and smiles, a little sad. “I know. It’s all a mess—whether the feds are after you or not.” She leans in, sharp elbows on the table. 

Peggy still feels quiet, troubled, until Angie gives her a mischievous smile and says, “C’mon Peg, I’m sure you’ve taken out nastier government scientists than ours.” Angie stands to pace with her empty mug in hand.

Peggy steels herself. “Doesn’t seem to be much else filed in the SSR. And Howard stopped work on the project years ago.”

“So—” Angie pauses to set down her mug and drum her fingers against the counter top. “SSR’s done. Howard’s done, for now. Say—how much info did you get from Frankie?”

“Wouldn’t tell me a thing. Frankie’s loyal, I could tell that within a minute.”

“You say your buddies were hanging around over there, taking down info on some girls? That’s where some of the files came from?”

“Seems like it, yes.”

“Hm,” Angie grins to herself. “I’m sure Frankie knows more about this than she was willing to tell the likes of you.”

Peggy leans up at the prospect of a lead. “You think so?”

“Sure—just leave it to me, Peg. Unless you’re free tomorrow night?”

She’s not so keen on seeing someone who so recently found her sneaking about, but she knows it’s their best chance. And it wouldn’t be so awful to be out somewhere with Angie. “I am, in fact. Free. I’m free.”

“Well, sounds like we’ll be having ourselves a night on the town.” Angie looks pleased with herself. 

“Tomorrow, yes,” she says, then begins—again—to realize what sort of mess she’s gotten Angie into. Angie, who’s turned to rinse her mug in the sink, who’s begun clearing away the coffee, who’s already been hurt more than enough by this part of her life, of who she is. “Angie,” she starts, and watches her turn from the cabinet she’s half tucked into. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

She’s surprised to see Angie smile at her. “Not that easy to get rid of me, English.”

Peggy’d like to scowl, but she can’t help but grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks y'all for sticking with us!
> 
> real life has been a lot for both of us in 2016, and we might be slow on the updates, but this baby is not abandoned. 
> 
> and like let's be honest AC season 2 got us too salty to be ready to dive into this universe on the regular. but they can't take Angel Martinelli or our Bi Spy away from us. long may they reign. 
> 
> pls feel free to nag us @ limpwristdyke.tumblr.com and after-and-pine.tumblr.com : )


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